To There and Back Again

 Ward and I just spent a long weekend in West Virginia for a family reunion with my family. 

Let's get the COVID concerns out of the way that you all are wondering about. It was a small vaccinated crowd, outdoors with plenty of room to socially distance. And even though we were all glad to see each other, there was little to no hugging. I felt as safe there as I do anywhere else. Now onto the trip.

On the way there, we left the beaten path to visit this Amish planing mill. Ward enjoyed seeing their processes and talking with the workers. I did not enjoy how hot it was.

The next day we were up early to set up at the Ft. Boreman Historical Park where the event was held. 

The park overlooks the confluence of the Little Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. Originally the site was a Civil War fort to protect railroad facilities.

The following day, we visited the WV Botanical Gardens before heading home. The gardens were at the site of an old reservoir and had different garden rooms carved out of the forest. 

One of the many gardens was a fairy garden. You can see some of the fairy houses that have been built in the background.

There was a butterfly garden.

Close to the butterfly garden was a gazebo
where Ward was doing his thing of seeing how it was constructed.

There was a pond with marshy ground around it.

And a boardwalk through a swamp.

To summarize our trip:

It was HOT! Thank goodness for fans.

We saw lots of beautiful scenery both in the mountains and along the river.

I am very lucky to have the family I do both immediate and extended.

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, May 26, 2019

I am thankful for Uncle Billy's Garden.

I love gardens. Vegetable, flower, tree, shrub, formal, informal. I like them all. Yesterday, I had a pleasant time visiting one when Ward and I visited Uncle Billy's and Aunt Martha's garden. Aunt Martha invited us to pick some of their bumper strawberry crop, a very lucky thing for us. While Ward picked strawberries, I took a look at other things that are growing in their garden right now. Here are pictures of a few of them.

Uncle Billy has raised beds for many of the things he grows. This is a new location for the strawberries this year and apparently they like it.

The broccoli is doing well and hasn't been besieged by worms yet. Aunt Martha will be freezing some today. The cauliflower (no pictures) is happy, too.

The potatoes are blooming. To the right of them, Uncle Billy has planted corn.
Notice the high deer fence in the background. It seems to be working.

Besides strawberries, we also picked lettuce. Aunt Martha plants a variety pack of seeds each year that makes a very pretty bed. There are onions planted behind the lettuce.

Along the back fence, they grow hops for their sons to use in beer brewing.

The raspberries have just started to get a couple of small green berries. There are also blueberries and figs growing in other beds.

The watermelon and cantaloupe have just sprouted. Uncle Billy has black plastic around them because those crops like heat. 

The tomato plants are looking big for this time of year. 

Red clover was Uncle Billy's cover crop.

Ward and Uncle Billy hard at work. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I may have done more eating of strawberries than just picking them. :)

So for Uncle Billy's garden that he and Aunt Martha shared with us, 

I am thankful.

X is for an 'Xceptional Afternoon

Recently, Ward and I visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. The weather was warm and the spring flowers were in full bloom.  We had a great time both looking at the flowers and plants, and people watching. Here are some pictures from our eXceptional afternoon.

Tulips provided the major color in the gardens. Notice that daffodils were intermixed with the tulips.

A closer view

There were total white beds, also.

Ward liked the angles on this arbor and thought he might want to build one like it.

There were both paved paths and mulch paths through gardens and woods. The grass there hadn't greened up yet.

I think these are Jack-in-the-Pulpits, but Jack has a rounder, whiter head than I've seen before.

The trees were providing shade for the plants along the path in this hosta garden.

I really liked these dark red tulips.

The yellow tree is a yellow leafed Japanese maple.
 I had never seen one before and was totally fascinated by it. Now I want one.

This is the entrance to the Korean Bell Garden which is part of the park.
 (Next 5 pictures are from the Korean Garden.)

 Ponds provide water for the plants in the gardens.

These statues, representing grandfathers, are used to guard villages.

This is the 3 ton bell that the Korean gardens were designed around. The bell represents peace and harmony.

These totem poles were also used to guard villages among other things.

Another Garden Tour

As part of my Mother's Day gift, I took a home garden tour in Georgetown, a famous neighborhood in Washington, DC. Think history, rich people, and senator's homes. That's some of what you'll find there. The tour has a long tradition (86 years) with the local garden club and is their main fund raiser for beautification projects in the area.

The tour definitely took us out of the suburbs and into the city. Streets were crowded, parking was difficult, and everything was more expensive. However once we were situated, we had a good time meandering among the houses. Everything was within a few blocks of each other and the weather was good. It started to rain about 2/3 of the way through, but that wasn't bad either because it was not cold.

Come take a virtual tour with me.

The sidewalks were brick in front of the houses and had small flower beds spaced along them.

 

The front entrances to some of the houses were right on the sidewalk and some of them had a bed/small yard in front.

To get to most of the gardens, we had to go down long alleys between buildings.

Many of the gardens/yards were small and all of them were surrounded by a fence.

Grass was a rare sight because of space limitations in most gardens.

This was the only vegetable garden we saw although we did see herbs planted here and there other places. I think the lack of veggies was for two reasons--shady lots and small spaces. The gardens with this house were large and terraced across three levels.

The houses often seemed to be in a jumble. Many of them were 100-200 years old and had been added onto and modified throughout the years.

This was one of the larger and older houses we visited. All of the residences we saw were currently being lived in.

This modern garden fit perfectly with the modern style architecture of the house it went with. The house was impressive but seemed out of place among the older brick homes.

This dinosaur visited all of the gardens along with a little boy who was touring with his grandfather. The dinosaur often stopped to eat as he as doing in this picture.

While I enjoyed the gardens, my favorite thing of the day was this garden club lady's outfit. I think that's because she was wearing pink cloth gloves. Oh, the fashions of days gone by. Sigh.

LeeAnn's Gardens

On Saturday, Ward and I went on a private home garden tour that included six city homes. Some lots were small and some were bigger, but none were huge. We saw several different types of gardens and all were beautiful. The spaces were well planned--perhaps because each one of them was designed by a landscape architect. That is all of them but one and that one was my favorite. That was the garden of 89 year old, Anne. She has been in her house for 55 years and has nurtured her outdoor space all of that time. In addition to caring for her plants, she also made friends with the birds and had some of them eating out of her hand. She had a beautiful garden, but it was a little more "wild" looking than the others with a wider variety of plants and fewer groupings.

One of the reasons I liked Anne's garden so much was that it reminded me of LeeAnn's garden. LeeAnn was Ward's grandmother and she had many interests in her retirement years. She raised prize-winning birds as well as prize-winning collies. She fancied herself a photographer and was always in search of the perfect picture. And she loved her gardening--especially flowers. Upon a first look at LeeAnn's house you wouldn't necessarily think that she was a big gardener. It was hard to pick out the plants from the sheds and dog runs. However, just go on a tour of her yard with her and you would see things in a whole different light. She would show you her night garden planted with things that would only bloom at night. Next to it was the purple garden filled with only purple bloomers. Then there were the roses that she put in the front of her yard so people driving by could see them. Also were the azaleas next to the house--one of which came from her aunt's yard many decades ago. You see, LeeAnn had a personal relationship with each plant and she saw its potential instead of seeing the work that needed to be done around it. That's what I'm trying to each week as I take a Second Look around my yard. However, I still need more practice before I can be like LeeAnn was.

 I don't have pictures of LeeAnn's yard, but here are some pictures from the tour we took. The last one is from Anne's yard.

Rooftop Garden